Middleware Consulting International

Access to Services Now Available to Business of All Sizes

Bangkok, Thailand – 30 September 2020: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Blockchain Community Initiative (BCI) jointly announced that its electronic letter of guarantee (eLG) platform and network has successfully advanced and is now extending the scope and reach of its services and network to businesses of all sizes.

The advanced capabilities on the BCI blockchain platform include equipping its network with true hybrid cloud and multi-vendor capabilities, disaster recovery and multi-region high availability.

Commercial banks in Thailand manually issue guarantee letters worth billions of dollars to businesses annually as part of their guarantee process in case a buyer defaults. The negotiation between buyer, seller and bank can take up to nine days and the risk of forgery of paper documents could leave the seller without recourse.

Through Thailand Blockchain Community Initiative, now known as BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd., 22 banks and 15 companies have joined the blockchain-based platform to support payment obligations, for enterprise auctions and other domestic trading procedures. The platform went live in late 2019 and currently handles an approximate value of US$ 300,000,000 in guarantee letters. It has proven to reduce letter of guarantee issuance time to less than a day. Some member companies report seeing a 200% reduction in transaction costs. eLG is designed to reduce the potential for errors and risk of fraud for all parties involved.

“The blockchain platform is significant to BCI as it is aligned to our roadmap of using a hybrid deployment model to grow to overseas markets in the future. The Letter of Guarantee is just the first service offering from BCI. More products will be added in the near future. The platform also sets a strong foundation for BCI to scale and expand our services offerings on top of bringing speed and efficiency to more companies,” said Silawat Santivisat, Chairman of The Board, BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd. “Blockchain is the key enabler for multi-industry connectivity platforms.  Blockchain allows businesses to rethink processes and inefficiencies, and with the right partners and technology platforms providing scalability, security and multi-cloud capabilities, these networks can grow efficiently across environments and regions.”

“The major upgrade from Hyperledger Fabric v1.1 to Hyperledger Fabric v1.4 LTS posed huge business and technical challenges, with months of preparation and tremendous effort from all 15 participating entities working closely together on improving the business processes, security, governance, compliance and technical resources. The IBM team’s strong commitment and outstanding support to BCI made this upgrade to global best practices a great success with zero downtime,” said Siriwat Keatcharoensin, President of BCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd. “With IBM Blockchain as the technology foundation, and with the innovation milestone we achieved today, we are ready to welcome new members to our eLG platform and collectively bring maximum efficiency to business transactions in Thailand.”

“IBM is proud to support BCI and its growing consortium in bringing the use of blockchain technology on the highly-secured IBM Cloud environment to address one of Thailand’s key pain points in executing financial transactions,” said  Patama Chantaruck as Vice President for Indochina Expansion and Managing Director of IBM Thailand. “First developed by members of the Thai banking community with IBM Garage for Cloud in 2016, the platform has incorporated best practices in bringing both bank and non-bank ecosystem players together quickly and effectively.”

Global, Third-Party Logistics Provider Integrates Store and Online Fulfillment with Warehousing and Transportation Services to Help Optimize Demand Management

ARMONK, N.Y., September 21, 2020 – IBM today announced GEODIS has launched a new service that is designed to help retailers and consumer brands accelerate their omnichannel customer experience capabilities with a new e-commerce fulfillment service. The global, third-party logistics provider is integrating store and online fulfillment with warehousing and transportation services powered by IBM Sterling Order Management to help optimize demand management. The enhanced e-fulfillment network and improved proximity to online shoppers will help retailers evolve their supply chain resilience by simplifying unified order management orchestration capabilities across digital and physical store environments to grow sales.

Many retail and consumer brands face three common issues: not having a real-time, global view of inventory across fulfillment networks, limited fulfillment channel capabilities and not having full control over fulfillment processes to better manage operations that are affected by inventory levels. GEODIS’ e-Logistics fulfillment service is designed to help brands reduce costs and quickly reach e-commerce marketplaces and achieve success with shortened transit time by selecting the most effective fulfillment option to optimize delivery of customer orders. The new service enabled by IBM Sterling Order Management – a leading distributed order management system for retail as recognized by industry analyst, IHL Group – can provide a holistic view of available-to-promise inventory. This helps brands make more informed decisions on order sourcing and omnichannel execution, thereby improving the customer experience.

As retailers and consumer product brands constantly seek ways to delight their customer and react at speed to consumer behavior there’s a growing emphasis on selling directly to customers through a company’s own websites or online marketplaces. Compounding this challenge is many organizations frequently have inventory information in data silos rather than a holistic view, which can lead to inventory management issues that can result in lost sales opportunities from stock outs and markdowns.

“We’re seeing a growing trend of leading brands using stores as e-fulfillment and customer experience centers, bringing an incremental level of business complexity coupled with the need to master online sales. Without effective order management, order orchestration, and logistics management, efforts to sell across different channels – from brick-and-mortar stores to mobile phones – are bound to disappoint consumers,” said Ashwani Nath, Vice President & Global Head of e-Channel Solutions, GEODIS. “Brands seeking to accelerate their e-commerce operations can increase their e-commerce capabilities by making distribution networks more agile to better handle demand variability with the help of Sterling Order Management to confront formidable logistical hurdles.”

With the consumer market already reportedly experiencing much higher levels of tension due to the many ways COVID-19 has impacted the customer experience, the business risks associated with deficient customer fulfillment experience continues to grow. According to Forrester Research’s US Customer Experience Index 2020 report, the consequence of even small infractions can undercut efforts a brand makes to recapture customers once the consumer spending freeze thaws. For example, when customers are disappointed the report cited only 18 percent will keep their business with the brand, while just 18 percent will increase their spending with the brand, and a mere 15 percent will recommend the brand to their friends and family members.

“The consumer behavior associated with contactless commerce and the desire for fulfillment flexibility has challenged retailers and brand owners to accelerate their omnichannel capabilities, which is driving them to align their commerce and fulfillment platforms in order to meet evolving consumer demands,” said Jeanette Barlow, VP of Offering Management – IBM Sterling. “As we continue to emerge with new insights, we’re seeing leading brands modernize their critical supply chain applications such as Order Management to gain deeper analytics that help improve business performance and put an emphasis on managing their inventory at a holistic level – no longer siloed by channel or location. We think this trend will continue to grow as companies innovate and increase their competitiveness by building intelligent supply chains that are tuned to the demands of the specific needs of each business to optimize performance.”

About GEODIS

GEODIS is a top-rated, global supply chain operator recognized for its commitment to helping clients overcome their logistical constraints. GEODIS’ growth-focused offerings (Supply Chain Optimization, Freight Forwarding, Contract Logistics, Distribution & Express, and Road Transport) coupled with the company’s truly global reach thanks to a direct presence in 67 countries, and a global network spanning 120 countries, translates in top business rankings, #1 in France, #6 in Europe and #7 worldwide. In 2019, GEODIS accounted for over 41,000 employees globally and generated €8.2 billion in sales. Learn more at www.geodis.com

GENEVA, Sept. 11, 2020 — IBM today joined over 200 forward-thinking companies as the newest member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).  The relationship further extends IBM’s strong heritage in sustainable leadership and development in managing waste, conserving energy, using renewable electricity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Technical and industry professionals across IBM’s business units and research division develop new ways of helping to solve difficult environmental problems based upon data and today’s exponential information technologies — including AI, automation, analytics, IoT and blockchain, which also have the power to change business models, reinvent processes, and reimagine work.

“IBM is proud of our long-standing record for sustainable practices in developing our products and managing our company in ways that conserve resources and limit our impact on the environment,” said Mark Foster, senior vice president, IBM Services. “We have a shared vision with WCSBD that purpose-led companies can be the driving force for societal innovation that addresses the world’s most pressing sustainability issues at scale, from feeding the world’s growing population to renewable energy production.”

Connecting with WBCSD’s network of forward-thinking businesses across a variety of sectors can enable IBM to continue to enhance and implement its sustainability ambitions in collaboration with like-minded partners. IBM’s long-standing commitment to “good tech” reflects the company’s most deeply held values as well as its pledge to put responsible stewardship in the digital age at the core of its business strategy. IBM believes that sustainability is not only crucial for the well-being of people and the environment but can also power innovation and prosperity.

IBM is also aiming to help address the pressing global issue of climate change through its Future of Climate initiatives driven by IBM Research. These efforts focus on researching and developing actionable solutions to the global climate problem, including accelerated material discovery for carbon capture and conversion, optimizing carbon footprint of hybrid cloud and supply chains, as well as regional modeling to understand and prepare for the impact of climate change.

WBCSD has initiated a special COVID-19 response program for members to leverage their expertise to address the crisis and support the critical role of business. IBM plans to leverage its experience working with clients and partners like Yara, Shell and Equigy to help deliver cost efficiencies, speed to delivery, sustainability and new ways of working to keep workforces safe. IBM intends to participate on WBCSD’s strategic work such as the:

• Food & Nature program to build data driven and AI powered future farms leveraging weather, IoT, remote sensing data to help enhance farm yield and produce better quality sustainably grown crops, making farmers more resilient while restoring natural resources to avoid climate shocks.
• Climate & Energy program to help enable the scaling of distributed and centralize renewable sources through AI, advanced weather forecasting and asset resiliency capabilities, creating sustainable energy supply through electrification.

WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker said, “WBCSD is pleased to welcome IBM to our network of forward-thinking companies. From artificial intelligence to quantum computing, technology is a critical enabler of the systems transformation that we need to ensure a stable and healthy world for all. We congratulate IBM for taking an active role in shaping the future for the benefit of people and our planet.”